The writing succeeded better than the ministry. Modern definitions of sexuality are no more appropriate to the late nineteenth century than modern definitions of race; they were both being invented as time went on. Horatio Alger was sexually attracted to men, but sexual contact between men did not in the nineteenth century mark men as homosexual. Sexual contact between men might be a sin—like masturbation—but it did not yet signify that men who indulged in it occupied a distinct sexual category. Alger was, however, particularly sexually attracted to boys, and this crossed a quite clear moral
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